the human infrastructure: art of collaboration / collaboration of art

0. Why collaboration matters?
1. Starting a collaborative practice: finding collaborators & constitutionalising
2. Working together: tools, licenses, meetings & decision-making
3. How to leave or end a collaboration

Why collaboration matters?

Many people today are led to think that progress, however we define it, depends on the advancement of technology. But the truth may be a lot more old-school: being able to collaborate well gets us where we really want to be. Most technology is invented by capitalists and in order to serve capitalism. Surveillance, management, automation, all the tools for mass exploitation, distraction and destruction. The Machine devours and seduces at the same time, so to defeat it or get it to behave is certainly beyond what any one person can do.

In her Glitch Studies Manifesto, Rosa Menkman gives us hope that “glitchspeak can democratize society”. This is to say that when these same tools are in the curious hands of artists working in the field of digital media, something new happens. To have the audacity and the skills to question what the Machine is for, to take it apart and enter its code, to play with it and expose what it’s actually saying – that’s already more than just throwing grains of sand in its cogs, because it allows more people to see through it and start to think of different ways it can be used.

In this process, it is no wonder many artists often work alone. It takes a lot of commitment to unlearn and learn all that one needs to express their ideas. But if we want to escape the Laibachian prophecy of Jennifer Lynn Morone’s Extreme Capitalism and turn ourselves into sand-throwing mini-corporations, we’ll have to develop another skill and get better at reaching out to each other, thinking and working together.

Artists collaborate not only because projects become technically complex, but because contemporary conditions — precarity, ecological crises, migration — demand forms of practice that are easier to face when part of a team. A single project may require research, community organizing, administration, coding, electronics, sound design, archiving, and maintenance long after the project is “done”. New media art is often described through innovation and experimentation, but its hidden infrastructure is collaboration: finding and applying for grants, practicing non-hierarchical organizing, building trust, overcoming disagreements and creating opportunities to share knowledge.

This text attempts to pass on some tips that can help design the process of collaboration run more smoothly and offers ideas for troubleshooting common hiccups in self-organized horizontal teams. Every collaboration is a story of its own and working with people can be challenging, but with patience and practice we develop skills and models that make that journey not only easier, but also an enjoyable experience that brings our ideas to fruition and creates vibrant, creative communities.

1. Starting a collaborative practice: finding collaborators & constitutionalising

There are many ways in which cultural workers can collaborate. A good starting point is to reach out to like-minded people, or a person with a skillset complementary to the idea you already have. However you find each other, it’s important to agree on a shared purpose for collaboration – are you teaming up for a one-off event, a workshop, an exhibition, an archive, do you want to operate as a long-term collective or cooperative, are you city-based or a decentralized network.

Another important thing to check from the get-go, even if you don’t have an intention to create socially engaged art, are values and principles. Whether we realise it or not, every aspect of life is political and being clear about each person’s value system from the start, or if some things need to be checked and discussed first, can help down the line to prevent misunderstandings, disappointments and fallouts. See if any of the shared values are just declarative for some in the group, and to which degree can the team commit to putting them into practice.

Sticking to values requires knowledge and practice. To ensure everyone is on the same page, you can have a quick session where you list and define values that you deem important to the group and the audience.

Keep values in mind throughout the production process. If necessary, the group can introduce a ‘values checkpoint’ as part of the meetings to troubleshoot common issues like power dynamics and balancing workload, and to make sure the project’s ethical and accessibility commitments are being honored in the actual experience and not treated as late-stage polish.

Also, you don’t have to immediately jump into a big project with the new group. Feel out the compatibility: do you have similar working rhythms, levels of availability, communication styles and economic expectations. Group dynamics can be tested through short-term projects such as a public workshop, drafting a group manifesto, sharing skills and tools, or pulling them together into a shareable research archive.

Good collaboration depends on the well-being and maturity of each member. That’s why it is important to know and care about each other. Work together in good faith, have patience and build trust so that you can bring something better to this world with your art.

2. Working together: tools, licences, meetings & decision-making

tools and tempo

The choice of tools depends on the size and point of collaboration. A smaller group may find simple communication methods sufficient and take care of everything they need through a messaging app and a joint email with some cloud storage. Larger communities will benefit from defining a communication style early on, especially if the team is geographically dispersed and works across different time zones. Other than the messaging app and preferred online workspace, larger teams need to be careful not to exhaust each other with communication burnout. Instead of encouraging constant availability, consider agreeing on communication hours or silent work periods and response-time expectations.

Agreeing on values can also play a role when choosing tools for communication and collaboration. Habit might direct us to opt for the popular choice, but there are other options. Proprietary software is not only buggy, but also notorious for surveilling and selling our data in the service of capitalism. However, if the collaboration relies on working with people who come from a completely different field and are not accustomed to such thinking, or people who want to reduce the number of apps they check and default to what the majority is using, this can result either in compromises or it can be seen as an opportunity to popularize more secure and open-source options.

Here is a short list of such tools to consider (please keep in mind that their terms of service are susceptible to change, so double-check for yourselves before you choose to use them and self-hosting is always the safest option) :

– email, calendars, contacts: Proton, Tuta
– content collaboration platform / file hosting service: NextCloud
– messaging apps: Signal, Session
– video conferences: bravetalk, jitsi
– project management and workspace apps: Notion
– social networking services: fediverse (mastodon, peertube…)

For more tools such as cloud storage, file sharing, maps, etc. check: www.privacytools.io, monoskop.org/Free_software

In case a group member doesn’t have access to a tool the majority decided to use, do your best to work around this and leave nobody out. For example, if someone doesn’t have access to a certain messaging app, designate a rotating role dedicated to summarizing what was talked about on the app between meetings or at least to notify them if something important occurs.

authorship and the use of Creative Commons licenses

Whether the collaboration implies an individual searching for another person’s source material they want to adapt, or an artist collective that is producing something completely new together, it’s better to make a decision on what kind of license to use earlier on in the project. This discussion could be entangled with defining attribution and how revenues of the final work would be distributed among collaborators.

Permission to play with a file depends on the original author’s consent. We cannot regulate the consent of other peoples’ art, but we can think about our own, and use it to position ourselves and signal to others how we understand digital rights and creative processes in this world. What does it mean to own a file and how does that affect collaboration options? Is an artwork the end of a story, or a chapter that has a history and a future?

Using a Creative Commons license doesn’t mean you lose visibility as the author of your work or opportunities to get paid. On the contrary, CC lets your work live on in new ways, therefore being spread more widely, and you have plenty of options on how to modify your consent about how it will be used. For example, during the production process CC0 and CC BY are commonly used for individual segments, because they are most permissive which can also be useful in the longrun. The Attribution-NonCommercial license (CC BY-NC) allows reuse and modification of your artwork with attribution, but prohibits commercial use. To that you can add the ShareAlike clause (CC BY-NC-SA) which means the person who builds on top of your work can only share it under the same terms. CC licenses range from some being very close to the exclusive idea of copyright, to others that allow people to share and sample your work, and also get paid for it as long as they credit you along with it. If you are interested in embracing this idea, you can find more about it on this wiki page.

meetings

Figure out a time and frequency that works best for everyone (fixed or flexible). Usually it’s a good idea to have weekly checkups with each other, but that depends on your pace and time.

You can rotate the roles of the facilitator, note-taker, time-keeper. If you are meeting in person, appoint pre-meeting chores to a member – booking / preparing the space, refreshments and equipment (board, computer, projector…). If you’re meeting online, try to rotate who coordinates the meeting time, and prepares and sends out the AV conference link.

Have a shared document where people can prepare an agenda together, or create it together at the end of each meeting. Eyeball how long each topic / the meeting should take, and be aware if someone needs to leave early to hear them out on time. Also, show understanding not anger if someone is late – simply delegate a person who can quickly fill them in.

It is good to start meetings with a circle of care. This is a round where we check in with each other, share about our day or week. It’s good to know how people are feeling, to cut them some slack if they are going through something, or share good news with each other and prop up the energy.

After that, the facilitator(s) can start the meeting by checking the decisions from last time and whether they have been respected in the meantime. Next, the facilitator(s) makes sure that all the items of the agenda for the current meeting get covered and decided on, that everyone understands everything (occasionally summarizing and clarifying) and has their say, and that people don’t go off-topic or interrupt each other. If new ideas arise, you can decide whether you want to prolong the meeting to discuss them, speed things up or park them for another occasion. End the meeting by agreeing what each person wants to do until next time, delegating roles and maybe sketching a time and agenda for the next meet-up.

The facilitator or the time-keeper makes sure that no item on the agenda takes too long, and that no person talks for too long either. If you feel the energy is down, if people feel tired or stressed, propose a break.

There can be one or more note-takers depending on the size of the meeting. Delegate a person who will take notes of what the note-taker is saying as a meeting participant. The template for minutes can include the date, people who attended, topics discussed and decisions reached (including who should do what and until when). Send the notes to the group after the meeting and allow people to edit them. Log meeting notes properly and send a link to everyone, including the people who could not attend the meeting.

You can try talking in rounds, rather than have people raising their hands. This ensures that we hear the quieter voices (of course, you can skip a round) and time down the big talkers. This works great for brainstorming and decision-making, and although it may sound counter-intuitive, it does not slow the conversation down, since people do not repeat themselves. The facilitator can sum up and clarify ideas after each round, so two or three rounds usually do the trick. You may find that building up ideas in such a way reveals the beauty of synergy and collaboration!

If you choose to speak by show of hand, the facilitator should pay attention that everyone is included in the discussion, encouraging those who didn’t speak to share their perspective and not mistake silence for agreement. The facilitator should not take advantage of their role by talking more than others and skipping the order of speakers.

If you’re working in a multi-lingual group, and even if you have just one person in your group who speaks a different language, translate everything during the meeting. If only one person speaks a different language, this can be done quietly and simultaneously, otherwise each step of the meeting should be translated. Minutes and all other documentation needs to be available in all languages used in the group as well.

The meeting can end with a ‘reflections and appreciations’ session. It can be healthy to make a round to openly and respectfully share what you think about how the group is doing – the good and the bad. This should not turn into a discussion, do this only if your group dynamics allow you to do it quickly and end on a positive tone. If disruptive behavior occurs, the facilitator(s) or the whole group can stop it and define how to resolve any issue on a separate occasion (see ↓ Conflict prevention and resolution). The general idea is to debrief in a constructive and friendly way.

decision-making

For a long time majority-voting was the default for a lot of groups, under the pretense of getting things done quickly and allowing people to focus on the goal. If you live in a democracy, you might take it for granted that each person gets a vote and that that is read as fairness. But in such a situation the minority’s perspective doesn’t need to be considered, and they as the ‘losers’ need to comply and carry out the decisions of the majority. This leads to dissatisfaction, lower commitment to the project, power imbalances and potentially conflict. Fortunately, there is a way that is inclusive and therefore faster as well, securing group cohesion and decisions that truly work for everyone.

Consensus-based decision-making ensures everyone gives their input and shapes the process and outcome of the discussion. It does not mean that discussions have to last forever until the last person agrees, especially if participants arrive at the meeting with some ideas prepared beforehand, speak in rounds and are ready to focus on constructive critiques to polish the idea. It also does not mean that everyone needs to decide on everything, but it is important that people who are affected by decisions are the ones making them. An easy way to solve this is to divide into smaller working groups (eg. research, design, software development etc.), employ consensus in each of those and report their progress to the whole group at the online workspace and / or meeting.

A tool you can use to make decisions together easier and faster is to check for disagreement, rather than agreement. The response can be a light disagreement (meaning “i won’t take part in it, but you can do it”) or a heavy one (“if you do this, I’m out”) which is rarely used as a drama-veto, since the loss for that person is big – leaving the project. In any case, it’s great if the criticism of the idea is constructive and comes with alternatives. In a group that works well, this serves to speed up small decisions (instead of waiting until everyone says ‘yes, i agree’), and polish anything that comes up in a brainstorm circle. If you get serious about practicing this way of making decisions, you may notice how often we let things slide because society trains us to be agreeable, compliant or passive. Diffusion of responsibility is a detrimental issue in general, and this is how we can practice our way out of it a bit. For example, asking “is anyone against using Signal?” or “Does anyone have a problem with having an exhibition at this gallery?” instead of “Is everyone ok with Signal / this gallery?” invites people to think critically, speak up and offer another solution.

What if not everybody is present at the time a decision needs to be made? This needs to be agreed upon in advance. For urgent matters, try to reach missing people during the meeting, sum up the discussion, present the options and ask for their opinion / vote. If they know they won’t be able to attend the meeting, get their input / vote beforehand. Minor issues can be wrapped up later through the online workspace.

If the group is struggling to reach a decision even after a few rounds of problem-solving, and there is still one or more people who are not happy with the potential outcome, try taking a break or postponing the decision for a few days and come back to it with a clear mind. Make sure you understand why people have reservations and see if you can continue with some simply not taking part in the proposition the majority consents with, or maybe new solutions come up.

Making decisions by consensus requires people to be mindful and bring their best intentions to the process. If some people are new to this, don’t worry, with good facilitation and practice this will ensure group satisfaction, creativity, quality and enthusiasm for the direction and implementation of your ideas.

conflict prevention and resolution

In their short tactical guide for artist run initiative, ruangrupa simply state that conflict is overrated, and expand by suggesting that we ‘make friends, not art’. The best way to prevent and manage conflict is to give honest feedback on time and in a calm manner, not to allow things to pile up and build frustration. We live in a hierarchical world and we may not learn how to do this at school or work, where we can get punished or fired for sharing our view. Friendships are a rare place where it’s safe to share feedback freely. Even when strong feelings arise we are unlikely to get tunnel vision and forget everything that brought us together.

Disagreements, misunderstandings and conflict are inevitable even in small, close-knit teams. Tensions may arise because of overwork, precarity, tight schedules, but also because people unintentionally reproduce power imbalances or are not aware of their privileges. The former can be managed by using tools already mentioned, such as communicating expectations, rotating roles and distributing workload fairly from the start, and now we’ll focus more on the latter.

We need to take care not to reproduce harmful behaviours when working together. Political literacy and upholding progressive values help build a safe space for everyone. This means we need to be aware of how class, race, gender, age, ability, sexuality and other cards we were dealt shape our lives and make sure that no inequality is felt within the group.

If any type of discrimination, arrogant or dominating behaviour starts occuring, don’t let it fester and try to react as a group, without people shying into avoidance, people pleasing without solving the problem or someone turning it into a social competition. Sharing feedback in a friendly way, being able to be held accountable and apologizing go a long way. If this fails, but the group still wants to rebuild trust and continue in that formation, sometimes it’s best to temporarily include a professional mediator.

In some collectives issues may arise because of informal hierarchies. Surely everyone brings a different forte to the table, but that shouldn’t lead to a bigger say in decision-making, controlling the budget or stealing the show. Skill-sharing, rotating roles, sharing resources (including contacts), crediting everyone’s work and having a collective social media account helps maintain a non-hierarchical flow.

Since people are most aware of their own contributions, timebanking is a good way to bring awareness to hidden labor and avoid overwork, including self-exploitation. A simple spreadsheet shared by all members will suffice, and at first each person can log everything they do: project management, prototyping, meetings, administration, care work, logistics… This part is usually challenging at first, because people might hesitate to log every hour of their work for various reasons – some because of their humble character, others because  even the most progressive among us might be surprised by the results. Even if the budget doesn’t allow for all of the work to be compensated, this approach can help to avoid burnout, taking others for granted and preparing the budget only for the final output or the most visible tasks. It can also serve as a compass to assess the sustainability of the project, and a tool that can help develop a bartering system among team members (exchange of equipment, skill sharing, any kind of help), in order to elevate harmony and unity. 

All too often conflicts get swept under the rug, resulting in people leaving, feeling hurt or guilty, losing trust and fragmenting the scene. Building a more positive mindset that most conflicts can be resolved and having patience to build such a culture can resonate far beyond a single collaboration.

3. How to leave or end a collaboration

If you are leaving a collective before the project comes to an end, you should be able to hand over any information or skills to the team, or help find a colleague with a similar skillset to jump in if your role was specific. Confirm which technical and artistic material can remain with the project and how it can be used, make copies of anything you made and agree how your contribution will be credited in future releases.

The end of a collaboration doesn’t have to be the end of the artwork, it can rather be the beginning of a network. The art itself can live on either by being released under a license that permits others too to display or remix your work, so ideally wrapping up the project entails preparing any necessary documentation to ensure the continuity of the artwork, as well as agreeing on responsibilities and including contacts of people who can take care of maintenance. Transferring the knowledge that went into creating the art – what worked, what didn’t and how it was made – strengthens the community and makes future collaborations more interesting.

Properly archiving everything means creating an ecosystem of its own. Instead of letting all the work turn into a graveyard, it can be developed into a useful commons which helps others learn and participate. So even after the original collaboration dissolves, not only the artwork, but also the knowledge produced and the relationships of people behind it who influenced and inspired one another, learned from each other and pursued their visions together can continue to evolve.

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This text is part of Fubar 2026 biennial exploring COLLECTIVISM.